What Has The World Become??

Following the news of the boy gone missing not long ago. (actually the teenage mum gave him away and made up the story) and the little girl that’s lost and found by the reporter (strange case, dont know what happened actually) and today’s news on the 3yro boy (here) can’t help to think what’s has gone wrong with these kids parents.

Sad to know what the 3yro boy had gone through… so sickening of what a mother can do to her own flesh and blood.

Mooncake Festival

These pictures taken last year’s Tanglung/Mid Autumn/Mooncake festival (that time no blog yet. )

This year didn’t manage to take any picture of the kids playing lantern and candles yet. In fact they only managed to play once. Wanted to let them play more often, but somehow due to some unforseen circumstances .. like rain, haze and class, we somehow just didn’t manage to.

It always goes like this for the past 3 weeks… ME: “Tonight we play lantern ok?” or JS:”mummy, we play lantern tonight” but usually after dinner, JS will somehow forget about it and I dare not bring it out just because the weather is bad, and always right before she sleeps ” aiya mummy, just now we forgotten to play lantern” …and me “nevermind, tomorrow we play” but the tomorrow never comes… I feel so lousy, like never keep my promise and such a big liar.

I wanted them to have fun, but at the same time I’m as paranoid as hubby. JS is particularly sensitive to the change of weather and environment that she will get wheezing and phelgm easily and also there’s lot of mozzie outside (though already apply the mozzie repellent)…of course I dont want to feel guilty to see her suffer an asthma attack or being attack by mozzies…hopefully tonight will be a clear night to play outside and that they will get to enjoy themself playing lantern outside. (eventhough if they do get to play, it will only be at the garden…no going around the taman…not as fun as it should be)

  Lantern that she only played once this year. Past 2 years she has got those battery operated one bought by PIL. I personally dont like those lantern, noisy and not so traditional (lost the meaning of playing lantern)…last year she also got a gold fish traditional lantern which she never played (left it at SIL’s place)

 Tonight (if possible) going to light up all these paper lanterns and finish off all the candles..

I remember Mid Autumn Festival was much much fun during my childhood days. During primary school, we made our own laterns. Standard 1 – 3 we used paper cardboard to make lantern then Standard 4 - 6 the teacher would teach us to do those wired traditional lantern…there was one year I made the difficult dragon lantern. It was my pride during those day where other children in the neighbourhood used to buy lantern buy I played with the one I’ve made myself.

We started playing lanterns and candles in the neighbourhood like 2 weeks before the festival. When hear someone outside the house started playing and slowly more and more kids would joined in. All the kids would play together and we go walking round the blocks sometimes even without our parents supervision… just the older kids from the neighbourhood taking care of us the younger ones (it’s quite safe during those time, our parents also have less worries and more “pang sim”)

On mid autumn festival day itself..during the night , our whole family will gather at my maternal grandmother’s house. 2nd uncle with his 3 kids, 3rd uncle, the four of us and youngest aunt. (1st uncle in ipoh and 2nd aunt in UK never joined us b4).

Grandma used to cook a feast on this day. We would bring the table and small stools out into the garden and feast there, so much food..from hokkien mee, mooncake and the special ”ling kok”, piggy biscuit in the little basket (猪笼饼）(do they still sell that anymore?) and others …while the adults chatting away, we kids would be playing laterns and candles….we hang our laterns on the fence too.  We children would also sit on the swing to listen to my aunt tell us story about “chang er” and also about the hidden message in the mooncake…we recite the cantonese rhyme “月光光，照地堂。。。” and　“抬灯笼。。”

These were the good old times…..lantern festival had never be the same again after youngest aunt got married to Ipoh and never join us at grandma’s place anymore….and slowly we children (3 of my cousins, my brother and me) also grew up and the younger addition (more cousins from 3rd uncle)  of the family didn’t had the same experience like what we used to have.

Haze Is Back

The haze is back and is real bad at our place. When outside the house, the haze make my eyes teary and itchy and my nose just dont feel uncomfortable taking in those stench air. How I long for clean fresh air to breath. Now I can no longer see the green lushy mountains behind my house…it has become so blury. All I want to do is to stay indoor…particulary in air con room.

Yesterday after spending so much time in car and outdoor…from school to home..to police station to the kind lady house..JS has got cough again in the night follow with wheezing….today have to excuse her from school again and keep her indoor…

photo taken in town yesterday afternoon…this morning is no better than yesterday.